The just-concluded Nigerian presidential election has left many citizens in a state of concern as reports suggest that the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) IRev portal is riddled with unclear result sheets. Many citizens have expressed their concern that such unclear and blurred results could affect the credibility of the election.
Reports suggest that some of the results sheets uploaded on the IRev portal were not clearly written, while others were properly not uploaded or were left blank. Speaking on the issue, an INEC official attributed such results to the failure of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), which is responsible for seamlessly uploading election results to the portal.
This development has raised concerns among Nigerians, who have expressed their concern that the results uploaded on the portal could be manipulated, following reports of contradicting results recorded at polling units. Such fears are valid, especially as many citizens took to social media to express their frustration that only scanty results were uploaded, contrary to INEC’s promise of uploading results as soon as counting ended at polling units.
As of 8:04 a.m. this morning, INEC has only uploaded 20,031 results, representing only about 11.3 percent of the 176,846 designated polling units nationwide. This is a cause for concern as it suggests that the electoral body is struggling to ensure the timely and accurate collation of results.
To allay fears and assure citizens of the credibility of the polls, the national commissioner and chairman of the information and voter education committee, Festus Okoye, has released a statement stating that the IRev portal is only experiencing challenges, and that the results are not compromised.
However, despite Okoye’s reassurance, the fact remains that the slow and unclear uploading of results on the IRev portal has the potential to cast doubt on the credibility of the election. As such, INEC must do everything within its power to ensure the timely and accurate collation and uploading of results, while also addressing any challenges that may arise.
Okoye’s statement read, “The commission is aware of challenges with the INEC Results Viewing Portal. Unlike in off-season elections where the portal was used, it has been relatively slow and unsteady. The commission regrets this setback, especially because of the importance of IReV in our results management process.
‘The problem is due to technical hitches related to scaling up the IReV from a platform for managing off-season, and state elections, to one for managing nationwide general elections. It is indeed not unusual for glitches to occur and be corrected in such situations.
“Consequently, the commission wishes to assure Nigerians that the challenges are not due to any intrusion or sabotage of our systems and that the IReV remains well-secured. Our technical team is working assiduously to solve all the outstanding problems, and users of the IReV would have noticed improvements.”
